Passage

“Hurry, Molly!” Pollyanna said.

“Not Molly,” Maisie said. “Maisie!” but the band had started playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and Pollyanna couldn’t hear her.

“Look,” Maisie said, reaching inside the neck of her hospital gown. “My name is Maisie. It’s all written right here, on my dog tags.”

They weren’t there. She fumbled wildly at her neck, searching for her dog tags. They must have fallen off, back there while she was standing in the entranceway, looking up at the Wallendas.

“Well, Margie or whatever your name is, we better get out of here,” Pollyanna said. She took Maisie’s hand…

“No!” Maisie said, wrenching it away from her. “I have to find them!” She ran wildly back across the center ring. “I have to,” she shouted over her shoulder as she ran, “or they won’t know who I am when they find my body.”

“I thought you said we can’t get out that way,” Pollyanna called to her. “I thought you said it wasn’t clear.”

“Clear,” her heart doctor said, and the jolt jerked her really hard, but it must not have worked. The heart monitor was still whining.

“All right,” her heart doctor said. “If you’ve got anything, now’s the time to try it,” and Dr. Wright said, “Start the theta-asparcine. Start the acetylcholine.”

“Hang on, honey,” Vielle said. “Don’t leave us,” but she had to find her dog tags. They weren’t in the main entrance. She dropped to her knees and dug in the sawdust, sifting it in her hands.

A lady ran by, kicking sawdust onto Maisie’s hands. “Don’t—” she said, and a big girl ran by, and a man carrying a little boy. “Stop it,” she said. “You’re mashing it! I have to find my dog tags!”

But they didn’t listen. They ran past her into the darkness of the tunnel. “You can’t get out that way!” Maisie said, grabbing at the big girl’s skirt. “The animal run is in the way.”

“It’s on fire!” the big girl said and yanked the tail of her skirt away so hard it tore.

“You have to go out the performers’ entrance!” Maisie said, but the big girl had already disappeared into the darkness, and a whole bunch of people were running after her, kicking the sawdust all over, trampling it, stepping on Maisie’s hands.

“You’re messing it all up,” Maisie said, cradling her bruised fingers in her other hand. She struggled to her feet. “This isn’t the way out!” she shouted, holding up her hands to make the people stop, but they couldn’t hear her. They were screaming and shrieking so loud she couldn’t even hear the band playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.” They were stumbling against her, shoving her, pushing her into the tunnel.

It was dark in the tunnel and full of smoke. Somebody shoved Maisie, still on one knee, and she fell forward, her hands out, and came up against hard metal bars. The animal run, she thought, and tried to pull herself up to standing, but they were pressing her flat against the bars, mashing her chest.

“Open the cage!” somebody shouted.

“No! The lions and tigers will get out,” she tried to shout, but the smoke was too thick, her ribs were being crushed into the bars of the cage, and if she didn’t get out of there they were going to push her chest right through the bars.

She started to climb up the side of the run, pulling up with one hand and then the other, trying to get above the pushing people. If she could get up on top of the animal run, maybe she could crawl over it to the door.

But it was too high. She climbed and climbed, and there were still bars. She pulled herself up hand over hand, away from the screaming people, and now she could hear the band. They were playing a different song. A German song, like the one in The Sound of Music, only it wasn’t the band, it was a piano with a light, tinny sound, like the one on the Hindenburg.

She had been wrong. It was the Hindenburg, after all. It wasn’t the animals’ run, she was in the rigging inside the balloon, and she had to hold on tight or she would fall out of the sky. Like Ulla.

Far below her, in New Jersey, the children piled up against the cage, screaming. “You can’t get out that way,” she shouted down to them. The fire was all around her, the roaring flames like snowy fields, so bright you couldn’t look at them, and she knew if she let go, she would fall and fall, and they wouldn’t know her name.

“My name is Maisie,” she said, “Maisie Nellis,” but there was no air left in her lungs, only the smoke, thick as fog, and the bars were hot, she couldn’t hold on much longer, they were melting under her hands. The snowy fields under her got brighter, and she saw it wasn’t snow, it was apple blossoms. Beautiful, soft white apple blossoms.

If I fell onto them, it wouldn’t hurt at all, she thought. But she couldn’t let go. They wouldn’t know who she was. They would bury her in a grave that only had a number on it, and nobody would ever know what had happened to her. “Joanna!” she shouted. “Joanna!”

“Nothing,” Maisie’s heart doctor said.

“Increase the acetylcholine,” Dr. Wright said.

“It’s been four minutes,” the heart doctor said. “I think it’s time.”

“No,” Dr. Wright said, sounding mad. “Come on, Maisie, you’re a whiz at stalling. Now’s the time to stall.”

“Hang on, honey,” Vielle said, holding tight to her white, lifeless hand. “Hang on.”

“Let go,” somebody down below her said. Maisie looked down. She couldn’t see anything but smoke.

“Just let go,” the voice said, and a hand reached up through the smoke, a hand with a white glove on.

“It’s too far,” Maisie said. “I have to wait till the Hindenburg gets closer to the ground.”

“There isn’t time,” he said. “Let go.” He reached his gloved hand up farther, and she could see a raggedy black sleeve.

Maisie scrunched her eyes up, trying to see him through the smoke, trying to see if he had a red nose and a banged-up black hat. “Are you Emmett Kelly?” she called down to him.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, kiddo,” he said. “I’ll catch you.” He stretched his white-gloved hand up really far, but it was still a long way underneath. “We have to get you out of here.”

“I can’t,” she said, clinging to the burning bars. “When they find me, they won’t know who I am.”

“I know who you are, Maisie,” he said, and she let go. And fell and fell and fell.

“No pulse,” Vielle said.

“Her heart was just too damaged,” her heart doctor said. “It just couldn’t stand the strain.”

“Clear,” Dr. Wright said. “Again. Clear.”

“It’s been five minutes.”

“Increase the acetylcholine.”

He caught her. She couldn’t see him for the smoke, but she could feel his arms under her. And then all of a sudden the smoke cleared, and she could see his face—the red nose, the brown painted-on beard, the white down- turned mouth. “You are Emmett Kelly,” she said, squinting at him, trying to see his real face-under the clown makeup. “Aren’t you?”

He put her down so she was standing in the sawdust, and tipped his banged-up hat and made a funny bow. “There isn’t much time,” he said. He took her hand in his white gloved one, and started running across the big top toward the performers’ entrance, dragging Maisie with him.

The whole roof was on fire now, and the poles holding up the tent, and the rigging. A big piece of burning canvas came crashing down right in front of the band, and the man playing the tuba made a funny “bla-a-a-t-t-t” and then went on playing.

Emmett Kelly ran with Maisie past the band, his big clown shoes making a flapping up-and-down noise. A clown in a funny fireman’s hat ran past them dragging a big fire hose. An elephant ran past, and a German shepherd.

Emmett Kelly led her between them, pulling Maisie out of the way of a white horse. Its tail was on fire. “There’s the performers’ entrance,” he said, pointing at a door with a black curtain across it as he ran. “We’re almost there.”

He suddenly stopped, pulling Maisie up short. “Why’d you do that?” Maisie asked, and one of the on-fire poles came crashing down, bringing the performers’ entrance crashing down with it, and the ladder the Wallendas